Isn’t that exactly what you want to know as you flick through titles on your phone, or run your finger along the spines of books on the library shelf. If it was just as simple as saying, abc. But it isn’t. And there are plenty of snobs out there who will tell you, that good books must be literary, so you can dismiss all other books. Just as there are passionate advocates of genre fiction that can drone on about chapter and verse and talk it up to the status of genius.
How many god-awful literary novels have I discarded on the “unbearable” pile? Yawn, yawn, another tedious serving of a university professor beset by middle-class angst, liberally dressed with irrelevant and embarrassing similes. Just as I have spurned robotic science fiction with robotic characters who have the emotional range of teaspoon (to quote from a good read).
I know what I think makes a good read, and it’s nothing to do with literary versus genre. A good book can come from anywhere, be about anything and written in any style. It is to do with the understanding and vision of the writer. A mediocre book is one where the reader understands at least 90% of it on the first reading. A second reading, if you ever do it, will definitely bore you and give you what remains of that final 10%.
A good read gives you about 75% on its first reading, but you will find it totally satisfying. If you decide to re-read it, you will be amazed at what you missed on the initial outing. You will realise that the inconspicuous sentences at the start of the book that you failed to digest the first time, ring like bells heralding later developments in the plot. You will see underlying threads that were not clear before. You will appreciate character arcs and see the steps by which they are achieved.
But a really good read gives you just 60% and leaves you thinking wow! The second reading ups you to 80% and you realise that you will get even more from a third reading and wonder if you will ever approach 100% understanding. Each time you read it you peel back the layers. You start to see the subtleties in the dialogue and the things that are left unsaid. You will notice the unresolved nature of the dilemmas; the imperfections of the characters; the wider questions that are raised. You will talk about it with friends and it will stay with you through the years, providing reflection and thought that sparks off in a 100 different ways.
Then there are the books that arrive at pivotal moments and change the course of your life…
Here are some of my really good reads in a variety of genres, because the only way to find them is through happenstance or recommendation. It’s a broad selection, and what worked for me may not work for you. Some of them I read many years ago, others more recently, but for one reason or another, they are all ringing in my memory.
- Crime and Punishment – Foydor Dostoyevski (classic)
- The Other Side of You – Sally Vickers (modern literary – English)
- The Ghormenghast Trilogy – Mervyn Peake (fantasy)
- Cat’s Eye – Margaret Atwood (modern literary- Canadian)
- Any Science fiction by Ursula le Guin (self explanatory…)
- A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry (recent history – Indian)
- The Lymond Series – Dorothy Dunnett (historical)
Salatheel 
It’s always good to have recommendations. The only one of this list I have read is the Sally Vickie’s, recommended by you some 12 years ago or more. And it still stays in my memory. I shall try another from the list right away.
Wow is it really that long since I first read The Other Side of You! Try some Ursula la Guin, her science fiction is more like an anthropological exploration. I remember a great short story about a group of people who volunteer to be the first to be instantaneously transported across space. Her science fiction from the 70s, The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness, although very much of there time, are great reads.
Great timing, I’ve been thinking about my next good read, currently working my way through mediocre attempts. Your are absolutely right about Fine Balance – found it in a second hand book shelf 7 years ago and still contemplate what it taught me.
Try the Sally Vickers… 🙂
I recently finished reading “A Fine Balance”, and it, undoubtedly, is a book one has to read and then re-read and perhaps do it once more. I had read Rohinton’s other 2 novels prior to this book; they were real good too, but AFB belongs to the group of elites. The story just doesn’t leave you.
Up until about ten years ago, I didn’t re-read books. I thought I’d read them, if you know what I mean. It was when I started writing that I really realised how much goes into the text and therefore, in a good book, just how much there is to get out of it. Thanks for your comment.
Completely understandable.
Even I’m guilty of having nothing re-read till now. But there’s a lot worth reading that I haven’t read even once, and I cannot miss it.
Rereading days would come in future. Definitely will come.
If you are to become a writer, Aditi (not that you are not one already), my best advice to you is to read anything and everything. From Clarissa to one of the Destiny’s Children series with all points in between. Read stuff you don’t like, just to work out why you don’t like it. I have read a Mills and Boon too, to find out how they work and realised that there is a skill to writing them. Don’t let anyone ever say to you – you can’t write like that. When you’ve read a bit of everything, you can point to Ulysses or To the Lighthouse and smile. You can write however you want to write – there will be a cost/benefit analysis involved, but then you will probably have read something that will help you decide whether it will work or not. Good luck
This is such a thoughtful and much-needed advice. Only (conscious) reading would let me decide if I like a piece or not, and the whyS of those likes and dislikes.
I’ve taken your comment’s screenshot so that I can get back to it at any time in future. Probably writing it down would be a better idea; yes, I will write it down.
I’m glad I came across you and your blog. Thanks again for the advice.🙂
You’re welcome! Join a writing group. Find one that supports you and critiques your work rather than criticises it, and you will learn heaps. I did. Good luck.
If you don’t mind, can you tell me about any such online group?